THE ESSENCE OF LEFTISM

Excerpt from Sam Wells

America is in the midst of a giant ideological war between the Left and the Right, and it has been for some time. What is the fundamental nature of that conflict? It is a battle of ideas - very different ideas and strongly opposing ideas. What, then, are the fundamental differences in the main ideas in this war we are in between the "Left" and the "Right" in the United States of America today?

On the most fundamental level and very broadly we say that it is the conflict between collectivism versus individualism -- but that is pretty abstract. What specifically does it mean in terms of differences between overall policy prescriptions and political platforms and actual enacted programs? What is the essence of the agenda of the Left as opposed to that of the Right?

The fundamental essence of political leftism is not merely its snarling antipathy to "big business" or corporations or the idea of a market economy in general, or even its abiding contempt for and resentment against "bourgeois values " (thrift, honesty, work ethic, punctuality, a desire to make a better life for oneself and ones family, etc.). The essence of political leftism is in its opposition to the concept and institution of private ownership of property. To the extent that someone disrespects private property rights - either personally or through the political policies he advocates - to that extent he is a left-winger. Likewise, to the extent that a person consistently upholds and respects the private property rights of others, to that extent he is a "right winger" (in America).

As Ayn Rand reminded us, without property rights, no other rights are possible. Without private property boundaries, both in our persons and in our external possessions and in land, commercial trade or voluntary relationships in general could not function. An advanced culture based on contract and choice -- rather than feudal birth status or socialist top-down commands - could not exist.

Freedom and free markets presuppose and depend on the security of private property rights. Only when property boundaries are clearly defined and property rights are secured from coercive violation, either by criminals or by arbitrary government intervention, can incentives for long-term private planning develop, calculated risks undertaken, opportunities made available, and a sophisticated capitalist economy emerge and flourish....

The Left often postures as being in favor of "tolerance" - but only in such superficial matters as skin color, not in the realm of ideas. The Left's long-time and continuing ideological monopoly in America's universities seethes with anti-conservative and anti-libertarian bigotry and intolerance much uglier and much more unrelenting than the personal prejudice of any stereotyped Southern racist.

Leftists also claim they are for freedom - but it is not the freedom from coercive interference with peaceful adults for which libertarians stand. No. The leftists clamor for freedom from want, freedom from deprivation, freedom from poverty, freedom from being disadvantaged, freedom from discrimination, freedom from having one's feelings hurt, freedom from the real world, and other such bogus "freedoms" which, if they can be achieved at all, come only at the forced expense of productive peaceful adult citizens....

The attack on America, on rational moral values, and on individual freedom comes almost entirely from the Left in this country - from the limousine "liberal" leftists who live in San Francisco and Marin counties to the hard-left socialists who have dominated the Democrat Party since 1972, and the semi-literate America-hating Hollywood leftists who have contempt for even the middle-class audiences they entertain on TV and the silver screen.

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"Left Fascists" are fascists too...

The Fascists of history were ALL Leftists but so deeply ingrained is the opposite myth that stressing the similarity of the modern day Left to the Fascists of history may require a new phrase in order to get much attention. Post below from The American Thinker

J.R. Dunn points out today that leftists cannot be fascists, at least according to leftists. That's nonsense, of course, and it deprives political taxonomy of a perfectly useful term created by the Left itself, i.e., "left fascist". I think the phrase was first applied by Trotskyites for Stalinists, or possibly the other way around. It doesn't matter. The UK Telegraph uses "left fascist" to describe the (racist) British National Party. It also makes a useful retort to bizarros like the New York Times writer who just wrote ,

"Of course there are Christian fascists..."

That sounds a lot weirder to me than Left fascists. I'm not aware, for example, of the last time Christians ran concentration camps, tortured people, and murdered one hundred million of them, as the Left did in the last hundred years. So "Left fascism" fits the bill, all right.

The Left conveniently forgets that real fascists, like the Nazis and Mussolini type, had the same passionate hatred for traditional religion that the Left harbors. Some coincidence!

We should use "left fascist" as an intellectually accurate term, not just another way of shouting "You mother wears combat boots!" "Left fascism" should be a standard part of our vocabulary, because it's so obviously accurate in real life. It was the Left fascists who drove Larry Summers out of the presidency of Harvard University, because he uttered an Incorrect Thought. Thought crimes are typically fascist devices to control human beings.

As George Orwell had it, our first responsibility in a time of lies is to tell the truth. "Left fascist" nails it. We cannot let the Left define the terms, and in this case it's the Left that came up with it! So they can't disown it.

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ELSEWHERE

A good sarcastic comment: "Barbara Boxer's `Freudian Slip' is telling. First, she accused Condaleeza Rice as being a flawed decision maker. Then Ms Boxer insinuated that because she has no children, Condaleeza Rice cannot be as empathetic or sympathetic to those Americans who might lose a loved one. Of course, that would mean Ms Boxer could possibly understand the evil or significance of racism, because she isn't black and thus her positions on race cannot be taken seriously. Ms Boxer can opine on with some credibility on the matter of corruption. Among other things, she funneled $115,000 to Douglas Boxer & Associates, from a PAC for Change, her leadership political action committee. Douglas Boxer calls the Senator, `Mommy.`"

Vietnamizing Iraq: "On Monday I asked, "How many people will the peace movement kill this time?" and pointed out the last time America deserted a a battlefield, millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians died in the wake. It was a victory for tyranny that should bring shame to those senators and congressmen who were responsible. Instead they puff their chests and a few of them want to do the same thing in Iraq."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

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